Russia is of course claiming that the strikes were conducted to "interfere with" the investigation of the "alleged" chemical attack.

I'm going to guess that there were zero attacks on the area where the chemical attack took place -- an area that Russian and Syrian forces have had access to for several days now without any international oversight, by the way.

However, it looks like their 'retaliation' is gonna be something that won't gain a military response; Russia had already talked about cutting off their titanium exports to the USA before the strikes, so they'll probably do that now.

I've also read some articles that mentioned Russian cyberattacks as being likely, but I can't find the articles again atm.

However, it looks like their 'retaliation' is gonna be something that won't gain a military response; Russia had already talked about cutting off their titanium exports to the USA before the strikes, so they'll probably do that now.

I've also read some articles that mentioned Russian cyberattacks as being likely, but I can't find the articles again atm.

Archer moment -- "Eat a bag of d****s, Russia!"

Not sure Russia actually wants to get into an open "cyber" tit-for-tat with the west. Not sure how "we totally didn't troll your social media" stacks up against "wow, looks like someone ruined that guy's centrifuges, and made that guy's missiles fail in testing launches".

Hmmm... what exactly would it take to pretty much cut Russia off from the outside world in terms of the internet?

Hmmm... what exactly would it take to pretty much cut Russia off from the outside world in terms of the internet?

Snipping some cables would do quite a lot. The real problem is I'm willing to bet you can't cut off Russia without also cutting off China. And no matter how much you think China can share Russia's bag of d**ks, doing that would do a LOT of harm to the rest of the world.

Not sure Russia actually wants to get into an open "cyber" tit-for-tat with the west. Not sure how "we totally didn't troll your social media" stacks up against "wow, looks like someone ruined that guy's centrifuges, and made that guy's missiles fail in testing launches".

Hmmm... what exactly would it take to pretty much cut Russia off from the outside world in terms of the internet?

Every country bordering Russia would have to agree to cut the landlines and jam any wi-fi signals at the border for a start; the odds of China agreeing to that are pretty much nil.

Then there's the problems of satellite internet, which would be tricky without blowing satellites up.

So shooting down the incoming cruise missiles would have had a minimal chance of military escalation; for Russia to not do so, indicates they are absolutely terrified of any possibility of military escalation or conflict with the USA.

All the Russian talk of shooting down the missiles and attacking their launch platforms (planes/ships/subs)? They were totally bluffing, and Russia has proven it cannot be depended on to defend its allies/puppets against the US military and its allies.

Of course they are. They know there's no possible scenario in which military escalation turns out well for them.

At minimum, fighting a doomed-to-fail expeditionary war against the US (...and the UK, France, and quite possibly the Saudis and who knows who else...) in Syria would be politically devastating for Putin. Not only would it completely destroy the 'Russia Stronk! Putin Stronk! Russia Stronk Because Putin!' narrative and image he's constructed, it would complete undo all of his gains in Syria both in terms of his own goals (Notably, Russia would lose the naval base at Tartus forever), and his efforts to court the Iranians (Assad would definitely be removed, and Iran's project to create a direct land route to Lebanon would be toast). Never mind that there's pretty much no way that a war between Russia and the west over Syria would stay in Syria. If the UK and France were belligerents, would they really allow Russian naval movements on their doorstep? How would they enforce that without attacking Russian warships? Would the Turks close the Bosphorus to Russian shipping entirely? Plus, even a low-intensity, relatively contained "Not-War" (Because I'm 90% sure that both sides would insist they weren't actually at war) would permanently secure economic and political sanctions on Russia, and bring who knows what else in terms of further measures. So even the best-case scenario would directly imperil the future of Putin's regime.

At worst, turning a shooting dispute over Syria into a shooting war in Europe would be an even worse no-win scenario for Putin. He knows that the Russia military doesn't stand a chance in a conventional confrontation with the West. So his only choices would be immediate nuclear escalation (I actually think this is pretty unlikely. The Kremlin is paranoid that the west secretly has some kind of effective strategic missile defense system, thus rendering Russia's aging and poorly maintained nuclear arsenal completely useless), or roll over and accept defeat, most likely fleeing to China, because he's the wealthiest man in the world and there's no way he could stomach or risk living as some kind of on-the-run fugitive in Russia just to play guerilla leader. Remember that he doesn't care about Russia except as a means of enriching himself and a base of power. He almost certainly wouldn't go down fighting just to preserve Russia's national honor or whatever.

Which is kind of the point of this whole charade. Syria, Ukraine, they're all just political ploys for Putin to use his control over the Russian state to expand his personal wealth and power. He won't do anything to meaningfully imperil that wealth and power. Putin isn't a conventional head of state, he's a mob boss that also happens to have control over a country.

Anybody know what the unique Italian style camouflage thing is for the premium? Kind of don't have the money to just buy it outright, and I don't know if I could even get a few stages in let alone far enough to get the unique style unlocked on stage 7.

Anybody know what the unique Italian style camouflage thing is for the premium? Kind of don't have the money to just buy it outright, and I don't know if I could even get a few stages in let alone far enough to get the unique style unlocked on stage 7.

Seems like an all-in-one. Definitely different from the normal Italian camo patterns.

Random question: the T28/T95 prototypes that were actually built have a 12" hull, and I know the Chieftain's talked about the 8" hull that was cast for trials. But does anyone know if any 10" hulls were cast as originally described in July 1943? Or was the idea of a 10" hull dropped entirely and if so, when?